The World Alliance Police would catch the man responsible. There would be DNA, fingerprints, hair fibers left behind. There would be justice, later. His job was to keep Thomas safe from the sharp edges of the tortured world they inhabited. Except the killer hadn’t left any of those things. Only his, and Dani’s, and Thomas’s DNA had been present, and so they had blamed him, torn him away from his son, leaving the eight-year-old an orphan. He’d told him everything would be okay. That he would never leave him. And later, when they’d come to take him, that he would be back. But they’d sent him down, two miles down, to suffer and die for a crime he didn’t commit.
“It wasn’t me,” he whispered for the thousandth time, but Thomas was gone, lost to him. There was only that light, the light that promised freedom from the dreadful guilt and suffering, so he opened his eyes once more and willed himself toward it, closer to freedom than he’d been in five years.
Then he heard a voice.
The light was not death, calling him to it. It was a person, headed right for him.
THERE WAS NOWHERE TO go, nowhere to hide. Only Gang carried lights down here, and Gang was brutal.
Above ground, they called the men of the SUIC subhumans.
Gang lived up to that title. From the moment they paid the terrible price of initiation and had the cross branded between their eyes, their humanity was a thing of the past. Even their names were a thing of the past: they were issued a number, and they ceased to be human.
They served one man. The man they called Leader.
Now, one of them was making his way down the cramped tunnel toward him, and the idea of pain was worse than the death he’d wished for. He swallowed a lump of fear and felt something prickle his throat. A nutty taste in his mouth made him wonder if an insect had crawled into it, seeking its own death, its own escape, from this place.
The light kept coming, growing brighter. Struggling to stay conscious, fighting waves of dizziness, he peered into the glare of the flame.
The man was huge, barely able to fit in the tunnel, his shoulders scraping its rough ceiling as he edged ever closer. But Gabe had stopped at the mouth of a tunnel. He’d had neither the strength, nor the will, to keep going. Yet here he was, in what the dim light showed him was an almost-circular clearing at the end of a tunnel.
The man almost upon him, his features came into view. Dark skin, his eyes and teeth almost luminous in the light cast by the flame. Then he saw what this man didn’t have. His forehead was unmarked. He wasn’t Gang. He was a Regular.
“Mister, are you awake yet? I catched you a rat.” The voice sounded fearful, and he heard a small thump as he dropped the rat between them. “Oh man, I hope you didn’t die already.”
“Leave me alone,” Gabe whispered. “I want to die, leave me alone.” His voice trailed into a fit of coughing, so dry was his throat. It ached to cough, his ribs protesting against any physical activity, and he tensed as the big man headed quickly forward.
“I got water. Here, drink some.”
Suddenly he was right there, a foot away, tipping a bottle to Gabe’s lips. He swallowed a warm mouthful, then spat the rest out.
“No, I don’t want it.”
“Please, mister. You can’t die. I been helping you to live. I ain’t got no one else to take care of me.”
He heard something in the voice that made him look up, and he saw. This wasn’t a man at all. It was a kid, a teenage boy, and the look of fear in his eyes made Gabe think of his own son, as he gave in to dizziness and sank into unconsciousness.
WHEN HE WOKE, THE KID was still there. Now though, there were two dead rats between them. He felt something in his mouth and raised a hand to remove it. A piece of chewed meat.
The kid was holding up the lighter, gazing at the tiny crystals in the rock above like they were far-off galaxies. He turned when he sensed Gabe’s movement.
“You gotta eat that, or you won’t get strong. You’ll die, and I be on my own again.” He looked down at the lighter’s sputtering flame.
“I don’t want to get strong. I want to die.”
“What do I call you?”
“Huh?” He wiped sweat from his face, flexed his arm against a sudden wave of cramp.
“You didn’t like mister, when you waked up a few days ago. So, what do you like?”
The boy was awkward, nervous. He kept his eyes on Gabe’s chest, avoiding eye contact. Something in the way he talked hinted at more than just an uneducated boy from the slums.
With effort, he propped himself against the rough wall, trying to ignore the heat that pulsed through it like it was some great living beast. “A few days ago?”
“Yeah.”
“That was only a couple of minutes ago.”
“No, days. I been takin’ care of you, chewing up beetles and rats so you could swallow them. I been dripping water in your mouth, helping you get stronger.”
The thought of having food in his mouth that had been chewed by someone else made him nauseous. But he did feel stronger, not so dizzy, more present in his surroundings. Like he’d been dragged back from the verge of freedom to continue living in hell. It wasn’t a nice feeling.
The kid attempted a smile. “I caught two more.” He picked them up in one large hand by their tails, the weak flame dancing atop the lighter in his other. “I’m good at catching ‘em.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen, I think.” He said it hesitatingly, like he was being accused of something.
“They’re sending kids down here now? Shit.”
The boy dropped the rats and covered his face. He drew his chin into his chest, hunched his broad shoulders, and closed his eyes. “Please don’t cuss me. I don’t like it. Annie cussed me all the time, and it made me scared.”
He was big and stocky, at least six four, but now he began to weep. Fifteen, just fifteen years old, and condemned to this. He figured it up in his head. His son had just turned nine when he’d been sent here. That had been five years ago.
The boy in front of him was only a year older than Thomas, but something wasn’t right. He was more like the eight-year-old his son had been on the night he lost his mother, than a teenager on the verge of adulthood.
A current of emotion ran through him, anger mixed with pity. This boy had saved his life, whether he wanted him to or not, and now he felt guilty, felt responsible. But he could be responsible for nothing but himself down here, and he hadn’t been able to escape. He hadn’t even been able to die.
“What’s your name?”
“Bodge.”
“That’s an odd name.” He blinked against the stinging of grit in his eyes.
“Just what they call me.” He shrugged, and the lighter went out. He gave a cry and flicked it back into life.
“Listen to me, Bodge. I can’t take care of you. I’m done with this place, I can’t take it anymore. You have to leave me.”
“Are you afraid of the Crossmen? I dragged you down the tunnel so they wouldn’t find you.”
“Crossmen?”
“Those guys with the crosses on their heads are mean. I knew it soon as they dropped me in here on the little helicopter. I knew they was mean, and I hid my light and my water.”
“You smuggled them out of the Cotton Cave?”
“What’s smuggle?”
He sighed. “Never mind.” His months-old headache had subsided, allowing him to think more clearly. This kid, this big kid, had been convicted of some subhuman crime, despite obviously not being intelligent enough to understand why good was good and bad was bad. Added to that, he was terrified. So terrified he’d managed to get through the Cotton Cave, and the White Wall Chamber, without Gang having a chance to take his water and his light from him. He must have moved fast. Must have come directly from being lowered into the SUIC, seeking its farthest depths just to escape his fear. That meant he’d likely only been here a week, maybe less, but Gabe could already see the weight of the place written in his features and his posture. T
his boy was already suffering.
Bodge handed him the bottle. There was little more than a mouthful left in it, and he cursed himself for spitting a mouthful onto a floor from which nothing ever grew.
“It’s empty. There’s nothing left.”
Bodge nodded. “What we gonna do, mister?”
“My name is Gabe. Listen, Bodge, I can’t help you escape, because there’s no way to escape this place.”
The kid nodded again, his eyes a mixture of fear and acceptance. “I don’t wanna escape. My grandma said every man has a light in his tunnel, no matter how dark it seems. She said if I be brave and find somewhere safe, where people don’t bother me, I be just fine, but I searched all over, and I didn’t find nowhere. I been making you stronger, so you can help me find a place.”
“Your grandma’s obviously never been down here,” he said, grimacing against the taste of rat in his mouth. “There are no safe places. There’s only darkness and heat. Bad men. Suffering. That’s all there is. I can’t be your daddy, you have to take care of yourself.”
“I don’t have a daddy.”
“Well at least we have something in common.” He turned away. He was never going to be freed from this place, he was never going to see his son again. What did it matter if he gave up? Who would care? No one above ground, they wouldn’t know whether he was alive or dead. He supposed he was dead to them already, forgotten by the one person who mattered: his son. The only light in his tunnel was the flickering lighter in Bodge’s hand, and when the fuel ran out, he’d be living in darkness again.
BODGE STILL WORE THE white cotton clothing all subhumans were issued, including the shirt. It made him look like a parody of one of Leader’s guards. They were required to wear the shirt, despite the heat that made many men walk around naked. The shirts Leader made the guards wear were always pristine, but Bodge’s was practically black, with only small patches of its original color still showing above the elbows. It was soaked through with sweat, clinging to his skin. Gabe watched him in silence for almost an hour, listening to the occasional rumble coming from somewhere above. He was mad at the kid, mad that he expected him to live just to take care of him.
“Take off your shirt.”
Bodge’s eyes widened. He shuffled away from Gabe. “Are you gonna hurt me?”
“Why would I hurt you?”
“People hurt me before.”
“You’re twice the size of me. Come on, take it off. You’ll be a little cooler.”
“You promise you won’t hurt me, like Annie’s friends?”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Bodge.”
Bodge glanced into his eyes, then held out the lighter. He took it from him, then watched him pull the shirt over his head and set it down beside him. He wrapped his big arms around his torso and sat, head down. Beads of sweat glistened on his dark skin.
People hurt me before, he’d said. Annie’s friends.
“You feel better?”
“I don’t know.”
He pictured Thomas’s face. If this was Thomas in front of him, what would he do? Would he tell him he had to make it on his own? That he couldn’t help him because he’d given up? That he was ready to die? No, he would take care of him, help him to survive, help him to live. He would try to find a way for them to escape.
But he’d gone down every tunnel, through every chamber, and there was only rock above. There was only one way in or out. That steel shaft, that ominous, long shaft that brought men from light into darkness. There was no way up that shaft, and even if there was, there were soldiers up there. Soldiers who would fry you the moment you poked your head out.
Bodge cried out as another rumble shook their tiny hideaway. As he moved forward to comfort him, a drip hit him on the head.
He held the lighter up to the rock and saw that the water was dripping from a newly-formed crack. He caught a couple of drops in a cupped hand, then licked them from his palm. The acrid taste made him grimace.
Bodge watched curiously, but when Gabe looked at him, he dropped his gaze. “Should we catch it, in the bottle?”
“It’s dirty, Bodge. We can’t drink it.”
“But I’m thirsty. Can I drink a little?”
“If you drink it, you’ll get sick. You don’t want to get sick, do you?”
Bodge shook his head, but he looked doubtful, unconvinced.
They fell silent, listening to drip after drip as the rate at which they fell increased.
Gabe had heard those rumbles several times, felt the earth around him tremble. Could it be a new war, raging two miles above? And why should it matter if bombs were falling on the up?
Because his son was up there, and he wasn’t.
The water began to gush from the crack above, filling the space around them at an alarming rate. In less than a minute, it was over his hips, and rising still.
“Bodge, we have to get out of here.”
“I did a bad thing.”
“What are you talking about? Listen, if we don’t move, we’ll die.”
“But you wanted to die, and I made you live. I was seffish. I made you live, because I was scared to be on my own. If we go out there, Crossmen will hurt us.”
“We don’t have a choice.” As if to back him up, the ceiling above began to disintegrate, large clumps of earth and rock falling onto and around them.
He reached out and grabbed Bodge’s hand. The kid froze, his body rigid with fear.
Why me? he thought. Why did he have to find me?
“Come on, let’s go. I’ll take care of you. I’ll help you find somewhere safe.”
“You promise?”
“I promise, but you have to trust me. If we stay here, we’ll drown.”
They made their way out of the clearing, crawling on their hands and knees. Hot, filthy water gushed over them, filling the tunnel. Gabe lifted his head out of the water, into the few inches of space that remained in the tunnel. “Don’t swallow it. Whatever you do, don’t swallow the water, Bodge.”
He saw nothing but blackness behind him, the sound of Bodge’s panicked splashing telling him the boy was following his voice. He continued forward, hoping Bodge stayed with him, and soon the level of the water dropped as they neared the end of the tunnel. Moments later, he breathed the thin air at the place he’d crawled into days earlier, and heard Bodge beside him, coughing and spitting out the acrid water.
They lay on the wet ground, gulping in air, searching for oxygen, listening to the tunnel they’d just escaped giving way behind them.
If they’d stayed, they’d be dead. If not drowned, then certainly crushed. How long he could keep Bodge alive, Gabe didn’t know. But he’d promised to look after him, and he would try to keep that promise, in honor of the son he’d left behind.
CHAPTER TWO
“YOU’RE STUPID, AND you’re wrong.”
“How am I stupid, and how am I wrong?” Thirty-Nine had told Forty they’d be better off trying to get out via the shaft. “Gang are being blown to bits day after day. There must be a layer of bombs between the rock. Or methane, it could be methane. As soon as the flame from the lighter hits it, it’s kaboom and goodnight. But think about it. There can’t be methane or bombs in the shaft, because the drones they lower subs on have flames coming out on all sides, and there are no explosions when they come down.”
Forty eyed him, his stare somewhere between pity and calculating cunning. It made him uneasy. “You know what it sounds like to me? It sounds like you’re questioning Leader’s judgment, breaking the rules. You know what happens to men who break the rules.”
“I’m not. I swear I’m not. I’m just saying there must be an easier way to get to the surface without digging through two miles of shit and getting blown to bits.”
“And I’m just saying you’re stupid, and you’re wrong. Leader knows best. The drones don’t touch the sides when they bring men down. That’s because of the charges poking out. You ain’t blind, you must’ve seen ‘em on your way in? Might
not be any methane, but there’s plenty of bombs, that’s for sure.” He kicked out at a rat that had strayed too close, and it scuttled off into the darkness ahead. “Just as much chance of getting blown to bits there. And anyway, no one can get to the shaft, because the Cotton Cave is off limits, remember? You send men in there, they’re gonna get infected. Then what? Whatever’s killing the Regulars won’t have any problem killing us, too.”
“But Leader has guards in the Cotton Cave. I don’t know why they stay there, knowing they’ll get sick.”
Forty stopped in his tracks. He held the lighter up to his face and touched the cross burned into his forehead.
“This is why they stay, but you’re right, those poor bastards are as good as dead. That’s a plague in there. I think I’d rather get blown up than end up like those poor bastards.”
“I don’t know, man. I mean, every time we go back to tell Leader how many more we’ve buried, nothing’s ever said about the guards in the Cotton Cave. But here’s the thing: I haven’t heard of any Diggers being called back to guard Leader, so the guards in the Cotton Cave must be okay. He wouldn’t leave that door unguarded.”
“He might.”
“No way. He’s too paranoid.”
Forty’s head whipped around. “Paranoid?”
“It’s a good thing. I mean he’s too aware of his surroundings to leave that entrance unguarded. He knows it would be a mistake. I just can’t figure out why the guards don’t get sick, being in there with all those diseased Regulars.”
They began to walk again, the flame of the lighter in Forty’s hands not showing them much of what was ahead, mainly because what was ahead was more of what was behind: blackness.
“I guess we’re lucky, except I don’t feel lucky.” Thirty-Nine chose his words carefully, mindful of Forty’s sharp glance when he’d said Leader was paranoid. Talking about Leader was breaking the rules, but everybody did it. It was when people spoke of him negatively that they were putting themselves at risk. The prize for turning in someone who didn’t keep his promise to obey the rules was extra rice, and everybody down here wanted that. Forty was no different. Whether they’d been partnered five years or one minute, hunger was hunger, and food was food.
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